Get to Know DESIGNxRI’s New Executive Director

Photograph courtesy of Islay Taylor/Rue Sakayama

Islay Taylor, an artist with more than a decade of art administration, education and curation experience, was named the new executive director of DESIGNxRI in June. The Providence resident most recently served as the Steel Yard’s associate director and is a dedicated yoga practitioner and teacher.

Formed in 2013, DESIGNxRI (pronounced “Design by Rhode Island”) is a nonprofit economic development organization that connects and supports professionals in Rhode Island’s design sector, including product designers, architects, graphic designers and more. Its flagship Design Catalyst Program teaches creatives to grow their businesses within a structured, monthslong cohort, and the annual Design Week RI is a celebration of the state’s designers and creative businesses packed with site visits, networking events and discussions.

We sat down with Taylor after she returned from a post-Design Week RI getaway to discuss her new role, her creative practice and the future of DESIGNxRI.

How was your vacation? Did you go anywhere or just relax?

I went to Madrid. One of my superpowers is finding incredibly cheap plane tickets, and I luckily have a dear friend who moved there about a year ago. It was lovely.

How do you find these plane fares?

You could subscribe to a newsletter. I subscribe to a couple of them. Essentially, when they see flights out of your home airport they pop you an email. I live a very small life here in Providence, and that’s intentional, because I enjoy traveling. I’ve been spying on the flights long enough that I know I can go to Hawaii for maybe $400, round-trip direct, in December. Last year, I was able to get myself to Australia for $400.

Congratulations on wrapping up Design Week RI. How was it?

It was so inspiring. As a new executive director with this organization, being able to plug in right before one of the biggest programs we run was a great way for me to truly understand the value of design across the state and ways in which designers are working differently. It’s such a broad field that has permeable barriers around what it means to be a designer, and we’re constantly expanding the definition of design, so being able to see tangible touchstones across media, across modalities, intentionalities and all that was amazing for the organization. It’s obviously a huge lift, but such a great opportunity to share and advocate for people working in the design field across the state. It was a phenomenal, really wonderful experience.

Were there any workshops or programs that really stood out to you?

There were a few items that really blew me away. There’s a company called S.K. Grimes in Woonsocket that makes custom camera parts. We got to take a tour of their manufacturing facility and see their programs. That was fascinating. On the other end of the spectrum, in partnership with Innovate Newport designers, we held a panel discussion about teams of designers that have used collaboration and teamwork to really lift each other up. So that was incredibly inspiring. And then the closing party was in partnership with Anyhow Studio, a Providence ceramics studio that’s an alumni of the Catalyst program. They hosted a ceramics throw down, which was absolutely wild, very rowdy, and just such a beautiful way to just have fun and be in community with each other.

What initially drew you to DESIGNxRI? What appealed to you about coming to the organization?

DESIGNxRI is in its thirteenth year. When it was conceptualized, Lisa Carnevale, the founding director, rented a desk from the Steel Yard. I was working at the Steel Yard at that time in an administrative capacity, and I would look across the office, see Lisa doing her work, and think, ‘What’s going on over there?’ So it was really cool to be able to see its founding moments. And then I was obviously aware of the organization for many years afterward. Providence is small, and we have so many amazing nonprofits in town. But what really sold me on DESIGNxRI was that a former partner of mine, who was a jewelry designer, was really struggling with his business. So I told him about the Catalyst program and that he should apply. He did, and I got to see him participating in that program, and how valuable it was to his design business and how it directly impacted our household finances. Really getting to see from a firsthand experience the impact of that mission-driven work made me a big fan of the organization. So when the posting came up, I threw my hat in the ring. And here we are.

Do you have any future plans or goals for the organization?

We are going to begin a strategic planning process in 2026. Although I’m the executive director, I believe in cocreation as opposed to a directive-based roadmap for the future. I’m very much looking forward to going through the strategic planning process with the staff, the board, stakeholders and the community so we can more clearly identify some of our future goals. The team has done a great job, despite all the change happening in the world, of staying very clearly and articulately committed to the mission-driven work of the organization.

Will DESIGNxRI continue its current programs?

Yes. We have done a lot of development on the Catalyst program — that will never go away. Our most recent cohort just started last week — it’s our largest cohort. The team has done a great job evaluating and streamlining the Catalyst program and expanding it beyond Providence. Now anybody in Rhode Island can qualify. It’s a cohort of twenty businesses, which for us is huge. We’ll stick with Design Week. Obviously, we’re already starting to plan for Design Week next year, which is going to be so much fun. And we’ll continue our Creative Conversations, where designers come together in a PechaKucha-style event and talk about their practice. I’m also looking forward to establishing more partnerships, both with nonprofits and in the industry as well, because the future of community-based work will be in partnerships and teamwork.

How do you think your time at the Steel Yard and Hera Gallery prepared you for this role?

Hera was my first nonprofit arts job after I got out of grad school at RISD. That was so meaningful to me, because I grew up in Wakefield and my mom took me there on weekends to look at art. So it was nice to have that full-circle moment. At Hera I began to better understand the role and the power of arts nonprofits to educate the community and become ambassadors for the artists we are working on behalf of. That education bit has stuck with me since that job. I really ended up cutting my teeth at the Steel Yard. I moved from being an educator in their programs to running the education department, and grew that to the point where I could no longer manage it as just one person. So I hired people to take it over and I got to work with [Executive Director] Howie [Sneider]. I was grateful to be a part of all the backend: budget spreadsheets, data entry, exit surveys — I love a survey. I ended up taking part in a United Way program called the Deputy Director Learning Circle. It was a year-long program for associate and deputy directors to help us skill up, to feel more confident in becoming executive directors. So I went through that program, and all of a sudden, I was like, ‘Huh, I think I can do this.’ And I’m laughing now, because every day I’m like, ‘Girl, you can do this. You can do this.’ That program was such a meaningful stepping stone for me.

Can you tell me a little about your yoga practice? Do you bring anything from the mat into your role at DESIGNxRI?

For me, it’s the community building aspect of it and community engagement. I’ve been teaching for just under ten years at this point, and my teaching practice is about facilitating a group class that honors the individual. Work is very hard, leaving the house is very hard, so it’s very important for us to have these structured moments of self-care and community care.

I think that’s so important, too. Everything is so hectic.

I teach Yin yoga, which consists of passive stretching and long holds. It works your connective tissues, your tendons, your ligaments and your fascia. And it kind of gets overlooked because you’re not jumping forward and back on your mat. You’re not sweating buckets. So what are you really even doing? But since the pandemic hit, I’ve seen class sizes ballooning. There’s just so much more of a demand for these quiet, calm moments.

Where do you teach?

I teach at three different studios. It has become my creative practice. I went to school for jewelry design and was making jewelry for a gallery. Once I moved into arts administration, I felt like the part of my brain that was in the studio was getting depleted. I ended up doing a yoga teacher training in 2016. It took me a minute, but I realized that I was utilizing the same part of my brain. I don’t make jewelry anymore. My product design practice is happily on hold, but nothing’s permanent. Maybe one day I’ll pick it back up. But the yoga teaching is nourishing my creative side, and what I love is that it doesn’t happen in isolation — it happens collectively.

Do you still do sculpture or any other creative outlets in addition to yoga?

I shut down my studio in 2024 and it’s happily on hold.

Do you think you’ll ever get back to it?

Potentially. My grandparents on both sides were artists, so I feel like it’s part of my DNA. And again, nothing’s permanent. I’ve held on to everything, so I can see a future when I enter into a different phase of my life, of rejuvenating some of the practices I had. Jewelry and sculpture would potentially be part of that.

What sort of artists were your grandparents?

My paternal grandfather was a musician — an organist — and a painter. I have a couple of his illustrations up in my house. And my maternal grandmother was a printmaker.

So you’ve got this lineage of art in your family. That’s really cool.

I think we’re all creative people. We just have yet to find our outlet.

How do you pronounce your first name?

My name is Islay (AYE-la). I’m named after the Isle of Islay in Scotland, where some of my ancestors are from.

Have you ever visited?

I got to go about ten years ago. It was incredible. One of my aunts did some genealogy research and identified where our ancestors lived. We hiked out to these bluffs and found the ruins of the homestead they lived on before evacuating to survive a famine. It was one of those Dickensian–Wuthering Heights moments where I was on this field, in these ruins, and I’m touching the stones, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, there are definitely ghosts here, and I’m related to them.’